Tag: Wildfires

“Hey, Mom, look!” Yelled my 9-year-old son while riding his bike up and down the driveway. “The top of the electric pole is on fire!”

“Where?” I asked, while strapping the baby on me for a little walk.

“It looks like fireworks!” Yelled the 7-year-old son.

“The grass is on fire now!” Reported the 9-year-old.

And that’s how the little ditch fire started last Friday night. Across the gravel road from our house, the top of an electric pole somehow overheated and burst into flames. It soon died out, but the sparks from it began a fire in the tall grass below.

Now there were 3 things to be thankful for at that moment:

No one lives on that side of the road, so no houses were in danger.

The wind was not blowing. (Miracle.) So it was a very slow moving fire. And

We happen to be not in a drought. (Also a miracle for where we live.)

Had this electric pole decided to burst into flames exactly a year ago, the entire Waterfowl Production Area would have been gone in very short while. Last summer, our fire department was kept very busy with wildfires, with one of them way too close for comfort – a mile away.

But this year, not a problem, yet.

Anyway, as soon as I saw the little fire, I called 911 to report it, while my husband grabbed a rake and ran over to it. He had some experience putting out fires in Montana during college as part of a wild land firefighting crew.

Meanwhile the children thought this was all very awesome. We watched from the other side of the ditch while the Sheriff and the Firemen pulled up. By this time my husband had mostly put out the little fire, and the firemen had commenced spraying everything down.

“Mom, I want to be fireman, just like these guys!” Note the blackened ditch behind the firetruck on the left.

My 7-year-old wants to be a fireman now. Because they’re manly and tough and get to be outside doing cool stuff like spraying water from massive hoses and driving sweet-looking trucks.